My Esteemed Republican Colleagues,

With all due respect, voting to fill a Supreme Court seat 10 days before a general election is fucking bullshit, and you know it. (Mitch, Lindsay, Ben…shut up. For the last four years you’ve enabled the Donald Trump horrorshow, so excuse me if I don’t give a flying fuck that you’re pretending to be offended by my cursing.) Look, you have the votes to confirm Judge Barrett, and it seems all-but-certain that you’re going to do it. So while I can’t stop you, I suggest you keep the following in mind: if you do this, I will make it my mission to pack the courts to the rafters with the youngest, most qualified, most progressive judges in the land. I don’t just mean the Supreme Court (how do four new Justices sound?: I mean the entire Federal judiciary. And these judges are going to proceed to take your stupid childish guns away (how about we just nullify the entire fucking second amendment?); to get rid of all your racist and backward voter suppression laws; to take away all the powers you’ve granted big corporations and grant them to workers and families; to further protect abortion, women’s rights, and LGBTq rights; and so on. Oh, and then we’re going to get rid of the filibuster and ram through a raft of policy so progressive, so bad for your rich and / or white supremacist base, that you’ll spend the rest of your sorry lives shouting at Sean Hannity on the TV while he shouts back at you about how the Left is destroying America by making it greener, more just, and more democratic. And your taxes…Yea, they’re gonna go way the fuck up, like to where they were in the 1960s when income inequality was at historically low levels.

It gets even better. You might think that you’ll just take back power in the midterms and the next general election, but see, there’s a problem. You haven’t won an election without cheating in a long time, and what we propose to do is popular with a plurality of Americans. What’s more, we’re going to use our power to create a system in which the person who gets the most votes actually wins (get rid of the Electoral College, maybe? Why the fuck not). We’re not going to use our power to entrench our own interests–no, that’s your MO, you pieces of hypocritical shit. Instead, we’re going to level the playing field: if you ever want to win an election again, you’ll have to, you know, compete for the voter’s votes. No more gerrymandering; no more modern poll taxes, closing of polls, purging of voter rolls, and other voter suppression; no more big money in politics corrupting everything; no more tacit and explicit acceptance of foreign interference; no more letting Facebook and YouTube and others give an outsized voice to conspiracy theorists and white supremacists.

Now, you may well think to yourselves, hmm, it sounds like you want to do this regardless of how we vote on Judge Barrett. And my answer is, you’re damn fucking right. You would have to have your heads up your asses to expect us to take back power–and it’s looking like we’re going to win the Senate and the White House, despite your best efforts to cheat–and not exact political revenge. What you have enabled the Trump Administration to do is beyond comprehension, and every single one of you knows it, despite the bullshit you spout on Fox News. But here’s the thing: doing all of the above won’t be easy. The one thing that’s guaranteed to rally our base and give us the political cover, and courage, to do it is you guys ramming this nomination through. Remember Merrick Garland, Mitch? Your bullshit rule that a President cannot fill a SCOTUS seat in an election year? Well guess what, over FIFTY-MILLION Americans have already cast their ballots. You arguably broke this esteemed body when you stole that SCOTUS seat; how do you think people are going to react when this illegitimate Justice begins voting in favor of the President who nominated her–and against the rights of the voters?

So yes, we may very well eliminate the filibuster and balance the courts–you guys are the ones that packed it, both by stealing a seat and by blocking hundreds of Obama’s nominees to the lower courts–regardless of what you do right now. But if you want to save any sense of comity, any hope of bipartisanship; if you want to prevent mass, nonviolent protests in the streets and the further erosion of belief in our Democracy, then I suggest you stop this sham process right here, right now.

But who am I kidding? For the past four years you have defecated all over the Constitution; you don’t give a shit. We know exactly who you are: power-hungry shills for the corporate interests that keep you in office as long as you are useful to them. Fair enough. Just remember what you have gone on about for so long: elections have consequences. My colleagues, those consequences are coming for you…and you’re not gonna like them one bit.